I'm not a big fan of rote learning, but I realize that kids need to learn to
efficiently recall basic math facts. My boy is in 3rd grade and is learning his
multiplication facts and is still a bit weak on his addition facts. The strategy
they use in my boy's classroom is repetition. He is given worksheets and asked
to work tons and tons of problems. It is not clear to me that they have given
him a way to find answers when he doesn't remember them. This really frustrates
him (and me by the way). I've created some flash cards and looked at a number of
ways to help him learn these math facts, they include:

If anyone has other strategies or pointers to online resources that are good
examples of these strategies to teach basic math facts, please share.

The most common strategy it seems is recall by drilling and killing like in my
boy's school. One effective way to do this is by using flash cards. The
Surfnetkids homework help newsletter () lead me to their math facts flashcards
page (). The problem with most flash cards is that they don't teach any
alternative besides recall. It seems like flash cards could be created that
taught alternate strategies.

This material is based upon work supported by the
National Science Foundation under Grant DUE-0226284.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations
expressed in this material are those of the author(s)
and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
National Science Foundation.